Everything good about The Doors, but without that asshole Jim Morrison
This week is pretty symbolically lacking, shiny lights in the sky-wise. Nothing until the 20th, when over about a day and a half there’s a shaky conglomeration of various lucky instances none of which are very impressive by themselves, but since there are so many of them it must mean something good. Extremely good omens for married couples on the 20th, highly lucky for Leos on the 21st. Also on ther’es the Mars-Mercury “change in a war” or “news about a war.” Since it overlaps with that pile of minor but nice signs mentioned earlier I read that as not being bad news.
So many reversed cards this week. Oddly typical for this crowd.
Leo: The Pope reversed – Society, good understanding, concord, overkindness, weakness.
Virgo: Ace of Swords reversed – Disaster, conception, childbirth, augmentation, multiplicity.
Libra: King of Wands reversed – The consequences aren’t necessarily unfair, but they are severe.
Scorpio: 6 of Swords – Journey by water, route, way, envoy, commissionary, expedient an escape that will fail.
Sagittarius: 7 of Cups – Distractions, bogus sales pitches, a visit from the good idea fairy.
Capricorn: Knight of Wands reversed – Rupture, division, interruption, discord.
Aquarius: 8 of Wands reversed – Jealousy, internal dispute, stingings of conscience, quarrels.
Pisces: Page of Cups reversed – Taste, inclination, attachment, seduction, deception, artifice.
Aries: 2 of Wands – The best way of thinking about this card is consider a successful old man. All the good aspects of a long successful life and/or the downsides of being at the end of a long life.
Taurus: Death – C’mon, you can’t really think this is a good card to draw, do you?
Gemini: 3 of Swords – Heartbreak, sadness, despair, depression.
Cancer: The Fool reversed – Negligence, absence, distribution, carelessness, apathy, nullity, vanity.
Scorpio: 6 of Swords – Journey by water, route, way, envoy, commissionary, expedient an escape that will fail.
Crap, looks like I’ll need you guys to send lawyers guns and money again..
Sagittarius: 7 of Cups – Distractions, bogus sales pitches, a visit from the good idea fairy.
*sets trap for good idea fairy*
I’ll steal a good idea from anybody.
Just another bad habit of mine
Well, look. If one of my children dies, I’m gonna be despondent. If my mom goes, I’ve already got her funeral planned and her house sold. If my husband goes, good gravy, we’re all cooked. If I go, then hey hey hey hallelujah, but don’t stuff me in a normal casket because I’ll look bad. If one of my brothers goes, it’ll be Bro1 of cancer or Bro2 on a flight to Tahiti. If one of my cats die, fuuuuuck. If one of my cunty aunts go, I’ll just stay home and make my own funeral potatoes (that is, unless Cunty Aunt Millie goes into the hospital and DOESN’T die, because I’m her DPOA—I think she forgot about that) because I fucking LOVE funeral potatoes.
If I sound cavalier about death, it’s because I am. We (bros and I) grew up with death as a regular topic of discussion and endless preparation, our religious cosmology is fabulous (or, as Carly Simon puts it, “Death is only a horizon”), and we’re pragmatic to the core. We all die, but Jesus, who could raise people from the dead, still wept. Two emotions can exist at once.
Libra: King of Wands reversed – The consequences aren’t necessarily unfair, but they are severe.
Tip: To avoid the fair and predictable consequence of a hangover, always skip the “just one more” drink at the end of the night. That’s the one that gets you (unless you’ve been really pounding down the high-octane stuff all night with no breaks, in which case you’re in for a hangover no matter what).
“Cancer: The Fool reversed – Negligence, absence, distribution, carelessness, apathy, nullity, vanity.“
I’m gonna stain the sheets and not care.
Am I the only one who just reads “Cancer” and tries to predict Sean’s interpretation?
🤣😂
Virgo: Ace of Swords reversed – Disaster, conception, childbirth, augmentation, multiplicity.
I just cant catch a break. Last week was shitty enough, and on the veneer this one isnt going to be much better.
Is that augmentation for you or a friend?
Clones ?
Tell him I’m fucking coming!
Terence Stamp, the English actor who played the arch-villain General Zod in Superman films, has died at the age of 87.
Bummer.
Of course those BBC assholes don’t mention Get Smart.
No sense of humor.
Terry meets Julie*, Waterloo Station, every Friday night 🎶
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIlxLO-XjX0
*Christie
How are we supposed to distinguish real fake news from fake fake news?
Storm-1679 developed a distinct technique in 2024 for combining videos with AI-generated audio impersonations of celebrity and expert voices, according to Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center.
One high-profile example of this tactic surfaced ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics and included a fake documentary series featuring Netflix’s logo and an AI-generated deepfake voice of actor Tom Cruise as the narrator. And in December 2024, the group used these tools to generate fake videos impersonating trusted sources like journalists, professors and law enforcement to sow seeds of distrust toward NATO member countries and Ukraine.
“They are just throwing spaghetti, trying to see what’s going to stick on a wall,” said Ivana Stradner, a researcher on Russia at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank.
No fair muddying the narrative.
Good thing the US is above such shenanigans.
VW shoots themselves in the dick. Again.
https://wealthari.com/volkswagens-controversial-subscription-model-paying-monthly-to-unlock-your-cars-full-power/
I got a starlink add on that link.
Ironic as that is what Tesla does with FSD and the plaid. It’s just software.
It’s apparently done through software, so I figure at some point hackers will figure out how to bypass the restriction.
Boston is like Vivaldi: Same song, marginally different variations.
As these disinformation efforts grow larger and AI tools continue to advance, the Trump administration has been scaling back the federal government agencies tasked with cracking down on disinformation.
——-
“Washington’s decision to scale back its information operations efforts is a dream come true for Putin,” Stradner said.
He’s Putin’s puppet.
the federal government agencies tasked with cracking down on disinformation
These are the same people who spent four years lying to America about Joe Biden’s cognitive decline.
It’s not disinformation if the President believes it.
Putin ate my homework.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/08/sick-georgia-daycare-worker-charged-aggravated-battery-first/
Beating up toddlers. This is where street justice is deserved.
All in
This mass retraining initiative consumed 20% of the company’s payroll. However, it failed due to significant resistance and even sabotage from employees. Surprisingly, it was the technical staff, not those in marketing or sales, who showed the most resistance [1]. This aligns with broader findings from WRITER’s 2025 enterprise AI adoption report, which found that one in three employees have “actively sabotaged” their company’s AI efforts, with higher rates among millennial and Gen Z workers [1]. Workers often cited job displacement fears or frustration over poorly functioning AI tools as reasons for resistance.
Vaughan, however, believed belief in AI’s transformative potential was the key to success. When employees failed to adopt the new mindset, they were let go. The CEO emphasized that “you can’t compel people to change, especially if they don’t believe” [1]. Ultimately, IgniteTech launched a new hiring initiative for “AI Innovation Specialists,” leading to a full company reorganization under the leadership of Thibault Bridel-Bertomeu, the newly appointed chief AI officer [1].
No idea what this company is or does, but the guy’s a believer.
Disaster
New phone, had it less than ten days.
Why buy the insurance? Many phones over the last 23 years.
Never broke or lost one.
Proceed to leave it on a piece of equipment and drive over it.
Ouch
Went to clean up an apple tree that had broken off. Chain saw had been left with gas/oil in it for a year. Added year old gas/oil, choked it and on the 4th pull it sputtered. Half choke, a few more pulls and it was up and running.
god bless the Stihl company, I’ve had that saw for 20 years or so, cut and chunked at least a 100 cords of firewood.
Same here. I finally took it in for service after 20 years of neglect.
That is a hell of a lot better than my Craftsman POS.
My stihl weed trimmer died last fall.
14 years in my hands, unknown years of the guy that stole it from the army. It was a good machine.
I don’t know if the warranty covers driving over it your own self. So you may have still saved the price of the warranty plan.
Gemini: 3 of Swords – Heartbreak, sadness, despair, depression
man-baby moron allowed to characterize Russia-serving stalemate as “progress” by national sycophantic hillbilly-servicing personality
For a man-baby moron, he’s accomplished more movement in the right general direction, and inflicted less damage, than any President I can personally recall. I do wish he’d lay off the Xwitter and generally comport himself differently, but hey, it seems to be a package deal.
I think he needed to have the personality that would a) drive the left nuts and b) speak to the, as Don so eloquently puts it, hillbillys in a way that garnered trust.
The assholeness that so offends is what others trust.
American politician fails to deliver miracle – film at 11.
I dont know what y’all complaining about. He has done a lot of things that were long overdue and done less damage than any of the others as RC points out.
Most of all, where else are you going to get this? Good money cant buy this kind of entertainment.
“She’s a nutjob. I watched her the other night. She’s all hopped up endorsing a communist in New York City, and she was all excited and jumping up and down,” Trump said. “She’s got to take a drug test. She really, though, she’s got to take a drug test. There’s no way somebody can act that way and be normal.”
Incomprehensible
Segall described Monday’s lawsuit as “an audacious move,” noting in a Thursday op-ed that truckmakers just two years ago supported the Clean Truck Partnership, which he helped negotiate.
Has something changed?
Just say no to DEF, DPF & EGR
“Taurus: Death – C’mon, you can’t really think this is a good card to draw, do you?”
To be fair, it doesn’t specify *whose* death. Or could just be ‘death’ in general! I assume it means vanquishing my enemies. I applaud this interpretation.
Just caught up on morning links.
Glibs Gulch Gastronomical Guests: So we were in Thousand Islands driving through some national parkish place and I had to pee. OMG. There were stores along the route. Stopped at one. “Port-A-Let out back.” Appalachian drawl. DaFuq. But anyway, I am not going to the “Port-A-Let out back.” Next store. “Port-A-Let out back.” No. Next store. “Port-A-Let out back.” I’m starting to sense a pattern here and the situation is dire. Found a park restroom. Oh! Cinderblocks and concrete and running water! Nope. “Port-A-Let out back.”
What you could do is have a restroom key for patrons. That used to be how it was done when I was a kid/teenager/young adult. It STILL surprises me occasionally businesses have a normal restroom available.
Racist quiz: 🤐
Growing grapes in N MI: This is the part that intrigued me: “Heavy snows, pulled by cold air from Lake Michigan, protected the fragile plants.” In The Long Winter, the Ingallses were the warmest when the snow had buried their house.
Job market: Seriously, getting your resume to a human is like trying to get a sloth to read. HR departments are crying no one’s applying. Job seekers are crying they don’t get a call back. HR departments don’t care who you know, they want their little petty power and they also want their filter to catch “the good ones,” but apparently, the filters are set too tight and the HR departments are too stupid to check.
AI versus Cliffs Notes. I never used Cliff Notes. A) I thought it was cheating [not that I DIDN’T cheat here and there, but the challenge was to write a decent paper with the back-cover summary, the first and last twenty pages, and a shit ton of panic] and B) I couldn’t get to the places that sold them [transportation issues] and C) I couldn’t afford them anyway. AND they were occasionally as long as the book. In short, even using Cliffs Notes took some effort that was only marginally LESS THAN reading the book and thinking about it. Also, Cliffs Notes couldn’t write your paper for you.
AI is NOT like Cliffs Notes. All you have to do is ask it a question and whomp, there it is, everything distilled in 3 paragraphs, and then for your last task, type one more sentence: “Please write a 1,500-word paper on why the wallpaper couldn’t have been green.”
Books are a thing of the past. In 2008, when Steve Jobs was resisting an iBooks setup, he said, “People don’t read anymore” and I wrote a VERY stupid blog post on why he was so very, very wrong. Except … he wasn’t, at least not in numbers to sustain fiction bookselling at a profit. The people who read long-form fiction are too busy or dying, and the busy ones will soon start dying, and the younguns who might end up getting their attention spans hijacked by TikTok. There will always be a place for the Hunger Gameses and the Harry Potters, but reading fiction won’t come back in a major way until an EMP strike.
I grew up going “out back”. A port-a-potty would not have been a concern. Now I might have looked around and hid behind it, depending on what number I was at but nonetheless behind the dumpster works for some naturally occurring events.
I am married. That means I live in the house with a woman. Some time back I noticed that women are not fond of finding piss on the toilet seat….yeah I know, whatever. I hate to break it to you ladies but it’s not a sniper rifle. Therefore I sit down when I pee in the house. I much prefer and 99x out of 100 just go outside to stand to take a leak.
I know Mojeaux, it isn’t fair, is it.
Not sure how you mean that, Suthen.
I told what I thought was a wry, self-deprecating story, which does not seem to have been interpreted thusly.
My apologies. I am the one stating poorly. I was adding to what 4X20 said and noting that in such a position I would simply pull over on the road and step behind a bush.
Wife and I used to have a. hot tub. She complained about me being able to stand and pee over the side while she had to get out in the cold and slip and slide into the house to the bathroom. So, I bought one of those stand and pee things for women. She loved it.
I’ve squatted at the side of an interstate more than a few times when I was in dire need (specifically, I-35 and I-80). Sometimes things things just gotta get done.
“Therefore I sit down when I pee in the house.”
I just raise the seat.
Eh, businesses that don’t serve food and drink don’t owe anybody a clean place to piss, and nobody owes random passers-by anything. For some quick stop type places, sure, a bathroom is a loss-leader – gets people in the door, while they’re there, etc.
On jobs – nobody cares who you know, until they do. When somebody far enough up the food chain tells HR to jump, believe me, they fucking jump. The whole open application process is hopelessly broken at this point; we’re back to networking, shoe leather hustling, etc. Honestly, whoever let HR out of their purely administrative box (process payroll, and new hires/termination made by the people who are actually responsible for them) should be staked out on an anthill.
Was it ever really open application for other than very low level jobs? I would say I got all my jobs through networking.
I got my two best jobs through open applications.
Circling back around.
I mentioned Frank Rizzo the other morning.
Enjoy this classic clip of him being interviewed by the I team.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HWHhev-aag
Truly a classic.
Anthony Rizzo. Anthony.
One of Rizzo’s cousins was a leader in the Libertarian Party. He described Rizzo much like one would describe Trump: great guy if he liked you and an asshole if he didn’t.
I got a Racism Score of 14. I’m disappointed. The questions were terribly written, were very specific and leading, and my ‘No’ answers make sense to me. Best two first, then other fun question examples:
Find it a bit unusual that it’s legal to stab people in the street in England (Um. Who the fuck *didn’t* check that?)
Think migrants shouldn’t be allowed to stab people (^^ Same question. Um. Hrm.)
Believe that Middle Eastern people ride camels to work every day
Did not post about BLM in 2020 (I did, but not in the way they’re thinking, most likely.)
Did the asian eye thing
Never sent money to a Nigerian prince (Uh. I assume people did that, but how is this relevant, here? All black folk did?
Refer to the second month in the year as “February” and not “Black History Month” –> WHO THE FUCK DOES THE LATTER?! NO ONE.
Noticed crime statistics + Understand per-capita –> Uh. You assume non-whites don’t, yeah? Um. Racist mirror, look on the wall, who’s the most racist of them all…
You voted for Donald Trump –> So all Trump voters are racist, meaning many black and Hispanics are, too? (No. Duh, no. Not that. The other thing.)
That looks like a graduate project in a Racist Studies program.
That’s … the joke.
Ha! I didn’t look at it other than the 90s web-style. I thought it was serious. Sadly, many *will* take it seriously.
Good example of me not being able to discern satire and reality.
Every question on that list is based on memes going around the internet (or Twitter, which is, to me, The Internet™), hence, the specificity.
11, should have been twelve but they didn’t ask if I had ever told a black person that what they just did was “Mighty white of them”
This one confused me:
I thought “it escaped from a lab where they were doing gain of function research” was racist and “those people eat weird animals they buy from wet markets” was non-racist goodthink.
Noticed crime statistics + Understand per-capita –> Uh. You assume non-whites don’t, yeah? Um. Racist mirror, look on the wall, who’s the most racist of them all…
The point there is not that minorities don’t know the terms. It’s what the statistics show.
Yeah, it’s weird how people who actually live in high-crime minority neighborhoods never protest against more cops in those neighborhoods.
“… fake videos impersonating trusted sources like journalists, professors and law enforcement to sow seeds of distrust toward NATO member countries and Ukraine.”
I am trying to eat here. That almost made me blow pizza out of my nose.
These cocksuckers just dont get it.
See, I thought “trusted sources like journalists, professors and law enforcement” was Bee-level satire.
You don’t want pineapple coming out your nose.
Refer to the second month in the year as “February” and not “Black History Month” –> WHO THE FUCK DOES THE LATTER?! NO ONE.
February is the SHORTEST MONTH- RACIST!
“Society, good understanding, concord, overkindness, weakness.”
Checks out. Going fishing with Bro and Pater Dean this week.
For a man-baby moron, he’s accomplished more movement in the right general direction, and inflicted less damage, than any President I can personally recall.
But him so icky! Experts agree.
big octopus escapes through little hole – maybe he missed being in his garden?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3N0i_KM8cI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmx5sLusykY
It’s good to be flexible.
Noted expert
The internet can be an immensely scary place. Technology continues to grow at an alarming rate, where the boundaries are blurrier than ever, and people are getting online younger and younger. It cannot possibly be good for our brains to be so warped by the algorithm. Eventually, we stop using our critical thinking and become husks for content purposes. It’s even worse for kids because their brains aren’t fully developed yet either. This is something that Neil Young feels strongly about, leaving the biggest social media platform in the world because of its questionable practices.
Recently, the rocker released his last statement on Facebook. There, he notes that one of Meta’s chatbot policies absolutely disturbs Young. Consequently, in making a stand against it, he’s leaving the platform altogether. Regardless of whether people follow suit, he knows that he can’t go along with what they allow children to see and do. “At Neil Young’s request, we are no longer using Facebook for any Neil Young related activities,” the statement reads. “Meta’s use of chatbots with children is unconscionable. Mr. Young does not want a further connection with FACEBOOK.”
Such rebellious counterculture.
Maybe we need an online safety act…you know, for the children.